US20120055771A1 - Backlight keyboard module - Google Patents

Abstract

A backlight keyboard module includes a keyboard portion and a light emitting portion located on the keyboard portion. The keyboard portion includes a baseboard, a keycap movable up and down relative to the baseboard, and a circuit board depressed by the up and down movements of the keycap to output signals. The light emitting portion has a shading plate located beneath the keycap and a light emitting element to provide light. The shading plate has an opening corresponding to the keycap to allow light of the light emitting element to pass through and project to the keycap. Thus the keyboard only illuminates light on the keycap location in a non-uniform manner to highlight the location of the keycap to improve keystroke accuracy.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
• The present invention relates to a backlight keyboard module and particularly to a backlight keyboard module for computers that emits light to identify keycap location.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
• In the technology information times today, computers become indispensable in people's daily life. Almost every line of business has to rely on computers to aid operation, either desktop computers or notebook computers. The application scope and occasion are very extensive, and they could be used in any environment. However, in a low illumination or dark environment, insufficient light could cause inaccurate keystroke and result in erroneous signal output. To solve such a problem many types of illuminated keyboards have been developed.
• For instance, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,179,432, 6,199,996, 6,284,988 and 6,554,442 respectively have disclosed an illuminated keyboard which mainly has a light emitting sheet held in the keyboard to illuminate keycaps to facilitate operation of the keyboard in an insufficient light or dark environment.
• However, the aforesaid techniques mostly have an elastic element and a driven mechanism interposed between the light emitting sheet and keycaps. The keycaps, elastic element and driven mechanism are mostly made of light permeable material (some of the techniques have the keycaps made of opaque material but with character portions of the keycaps made of the light permeable material). When the entire light emitting sheet emits light, the keyboard is evenly illuminated as a backlight. As the illuminated keyboard generally is used in an insufficient light or dark environment, such as on an airplane, vehicle or the like, the entire evenly illuminated keyboard has too strong illumination that could affect people nearby. Moreover, in the lower illumination environment, user's visual capability for the keyboard is lower. If the entire keyboard is illuminated evenly, user even is difficult to identify the character notation of each keycap. Even if the character notation is made of opaque material, or the keycap is made of opaque material while the character notation made of light permeable material, light emitted from the gaps of neighboring keycaps creates interference effect that makes identification difficult. To users who cannot well memorize the keycap character notations, erroneous keystroke frequently happens and results in mistaken command signal output.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
• The primary object of the present invention is to solve the aforesaid disadvantage by providing illumination merely on keycaps of a keyboard to differentiate keycap locations.
• To achieve the foregoing object, the present invention provides a backlight keyboard module that includes a keyboard portion and a light emitting portion located on the keyboard portion. The keyboard portion includes a baseboard, a keycap moved up and down relative to the baseboard and a circuit board to output a signal by up and down movements of the depressible keycap. The light emitting portion has a shading plate located beneath the keycap and a light emitting element to provide light. The shading plate has an opening corresponding to the keycap to allow the light of the light emitting element to pass through and transmit to the keycap.
• Compared with the conventional techniques, the keyboard of the invention only emits light on the keycap location rather than illuminates in a uniform manner. Hence keycap location can be highlighted to improve keystroke accuracy.
• The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying embodiment and drawings. The embodiment serves merely for illustrative purpose and is not the limitation of the invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
• FIG. 1 is an exploded view of the structure of the invention.
• FIG. 2 is another exploded view of the structure of the invention.
• FIG. 3 is yet another exploded view of the structure of the invention.
• FIG. 4 is a sectional view of a first embodiment of the invention.
• FIG. 5 is a sectional view of a second embodiment of the invention.
• FIG. 6 is a sectional view of a third embodiment of the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
• Please refer toFIGS. 1,2 and3, the present invention aims to provide a backlight keyboard module which mainly includes a keyboard portion and a light emitting portion located on the keyboard portion. The keyboard portion includes abaseboard20, akeycap60 located on thebaseboard20, acircuit board30 located between thebaseboard20 and thekeycap60, and abottom board10 to hold thebaseboard20 andcircuit board30. Thebaseboard20 andkeycap60 further are interposed by a drivenmechanism40 which includes acoupling member41 bridging thebaseboard20 andkeycap60 and anelastic member42 located on thecircuit board30 to support thekeycap60. Thekeycap60 is depressible up and down relative to thebaseboard20 through the drivenmechanism40. As thekeycap60 is depressible up and down, theelastic member42 compresses thecircuit board30 to output a signal.
• The light emitting portion of the invention includes ashading plate50 located below thekeycap60 and alight emitting element31 to provide light. Theshading plate50 has anopening51 corresponding to thekeycap60 and run through by the drivenmechanism40 as shown inFIG. 4. Thelight emitting element31 is a light emitting diode (LED) located below thecircuit board30 to get electric power from thecircuit board30 to emit light. Thebaseboard20 has aholding cavity21 to hold thelight emitting element31. Light emitted from thelight emitting element31 is transmitted between theshading plate50 andbottom board10, and passes through the opening51 to project to thekeycap60. Thus forms the main structure of the invention. Therefore, the keyboard only illuminates light on thekeycap60 to help differentiating the location of thekeycap60.
• In addition, in one embodiment of the invention, thebaseboard20 has ananchor portion22 to hold thecoupling member41. Theanchor portion22 has two horizontaldetent portions222 and adetent wall221 vertically bridging two ends of the two horizontaldetent portions222 to form a U shape with aholding space23 formed therebetween. Thecoupling member41 has a retainingportion411 held in theholding space23. Theshading plate50 has a verticaldetent portion52 to cover theholding space23. Hence theshading plate50, in addition to enhancing the illumination of thekeycap60 to highlight the location thereof, also can confine the horizontal and vertical movements of the retainingportion411 to achieve positioning effect through the two horizontaldetent portions222 and verticaldetent portion52 while thecoupling member41 driven by the up and down movements of thekeycap60. For assembly of the keyboard, thebaseboard20,circuit board30, drivenmechanism40,shading plate50 andkeycap60 are sequentially mounted in an overlapped manner without complicated assembly tasks, thus assembly processes can be simplified.
• Referring toFIG. 5, in addition to the aforesaid embodiment, thelight emitting element31 may also be located at a lateral side of the keyboard portion so that light can enter the keyboard portion through the lateral side thereof, transmits between theshading plate50 andbottom board10, and passes through theopening51 to project to thekeycap60.FIG. 6 illustrates yet another embodiment in which thecircuit board30 can be located between thebaseboard20 andbottom board10, and thelight emitting element31 is located above thecircuit board30 and held in aholding cavity21 of thebaseboard20. Thebaseboard20 also has anaperture25 to hold theelastic member42 so that the light can sequentially pass through thecircuit board30 and aperture25 of thebaseboard20, and project to thekeycap60.
• As a conclusion, the invention mainly provides a keyboard portion including abaseboard20 with akeycap60 located thereon, and a light emitting portion with ashading plate50 located below thekeycap60 and alight emitting element31 to provide light. Theshading plate50 has anopening51 corresponding to thekeycap60. Light emitted by thelight emitting element31 passes through the opening51 and projects to thekeycap60. Therefore, the keyboard only illuminates light on thekeycap60 location while the gaps between thekeycaps60 do not emit light. Thus a non-uniform illumination is formed to highlight the location of thekeycap60, and keystroke accuracy is enhanced.
• While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been set forth for the purpose of disclosure, modifications of the disclosed embodiments of the invention as well as other embodiments thereof may occur to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to cover all embodiments which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims (13)

What is claimed is:

1. A backlight keyboard module, comprising:

a keyboard portion which includes a baseboard, a keycap movable up and down relative to the baseboard, and a circuit board depressed by the up and down movements of the keycap to output a signal; and

a light emitting portion including a shading plate located below the keycap and a light emitting element, the shading plate including an opening corresponding to the keycap so that light generated by the light emitting element passes through the opening and transmits to the keycap.

2. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 1, wherein the circuit board is located between the baseboard and the keycap.

3. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 2, wherein the light emitting element is located below the circuit board and the baseboard includes a holding cavity to hold the light emitting element.

4. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 1, wherein the circuit board is located between the baseboard and the shading p late.

5. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 4, wherein the light emitting element is located above the circuit board and the baseboard includes a holding cavity to hold the light emitting element.

6. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 1, wherein the light emitting element is located at a lateral side of the keyboard portion.

7. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 1, wherein the keyboard portion further includes a bottom board to hold the baseboard and the circuit board.

8. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 1, wherein the baseboard includes an anchor portion to hold a driven mechanism connected with the keycap.

9. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 8, wherein the driven mechanism includes a coupling member bridging the baseboard and the keycap, and an elastic member to support the keycap.

10. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 9, wherein the anchor portion includes at least two horizontal detent portions to form a holding space therebetween, the coupling member including a retaining portion held in the holding space.

11. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 10, wherein the shading plate includes a vertical detent portion to cover the holding space to confine the driven mechanism.

12. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 10, wherein the anchor portion includes a detent wall to bridge the two horizontal detent portions to form a U shape therewith.

13. The backlight keyboard module ofclaim 12, wherein the detent wall is perpendicular to the two horizontal detent portions.

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